What happens to Trumps policies if/when he is not elected in 2020?

[TeeJay1952]

Our biggest weapon since WW! is our handshake. Second is our refusal to offer handshake. Trump has destroyed both. It will take decades to restore confidence in US.

 

[fskimospy]

Trump's domestic policy will vanish in the first month of a new President.

Foreign relations will never be the same. Never.

This is the right answer. Since Trump has passed basically no meaningful domestic legislation everything he's done on the domestic front will be undone by either the courts or the next president.

Foreign policy-wise the rest of the world has just been alerted to how America can no longer be relied on and that every agreement they make with us is exactly one bad presidential election from being worthless. This will have far-reaching consequences on how other countries deal with us going forward in a bad way.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'd figure all are suspect if it is, in fact, that trump is an illegitimate president, I'd think all should be reviewed and if proven unfit, removed.

and whether or not he is, all agencies need to be purged of all trump hires, they are proving to be detrimental to the country as a whole.

Generally I think everyone above offers reasonable ideas. Dainthomas points out the underlying basis, though: Trump's decisions about most things seem to be underscored by his unspoken idea that Obama could only be wrong about everything (for being black). This especially defines Trump's disastrous withdrawal from the Iran agreement.

But Dawp here has his finger on something.

I personally regret having chosen a civil service career, and I particularly regret sticking with it as an act of determination. I suppose I'd recommend Anthony Downs' book "Inside Bureaucracy" as a perspective on the inner workings of government. But there are myths about the federal service that have persisted far too long.

For a long time, a considerable part of it would fit the description of "best educated workforce in the country". But what I saw after Reagan's first term was a slow cycle of deterioration.

What was supposed to be a "merit-promotion" system became more and more a system where jobs were defined to take less advantage of worker education, skill and potential, and allow stacking some positions with political favorites -- sometimes people who had been congressional staffers for legislators voted out of office.

And while I was contributing money to the RNC during the '80s, I came to the conclusion that the civil service better lived up to its expectations, that there was less abuse when Democrats ran things. How could it be otherwise? If there's partial truth in advertising, and if you at least believe in good government as opposed to "no government", you would encourage a better federal workforce, you would encourage innovation and initiative. I never, ever saw a Republican political appointee encourage "innovation and initiative".

So I would encourage Office of Personnel Management and other entities overseen by Congress and the Executive to do a complete review of the agencies. I'd probably start random-sampling employees to compare their job descriptions with their educational and work-experience credentials, and I'd review their resumes for accuracy.

Then, I'd look for ways to do things better with a leaner workforce. I would investigate increasing the pay-scale, assuming there would be savings with a leaner workforce.

Particularly, I'd review all the people hired to fill positions after February, 2017.

And there's something else. Since the '80s, there had been this obsession with outsourcing work that more likely should be done by career employees. And it would seem that "new industries" were being created by this effort where none had existed before, or which didn't exist without government. Sometimes, it only offers a profiteer the chance to rent-seek fat profits while cheating the public of quality work. Sometimes, there's no effective oversight of the contracts.

Note the example of the Edward Snowden affair. I suspect that much of what has happened since Snowden skipped to Hong Kong and then Moscow in regards to the Russian psy-war effort may owe something to information leaked by Snowden and stolen from NSA.

Snowden was the son of federal employees with clearances at agencies in the national security apparatus. As such, he warranted a clearance of his own, just for being their spawn. But the outsourcing of work to Booz-Allen-Hamilton and an insufficient examination of Snowden's psychological fitness probably contributed to the entire unraveling of both the NSA practices and Snowden's defection.

If the meta-data argued to compromise individual privacy was simply being stored on computers as a risk to "rights of individuals", Snowden should've gone to congressional oversight committees. I think even Senator Feinstein had mentioned this issue of the outsourcing and other matters relating to Snowden's defection and theft of classified material.

Beginning with the second Bush administration, the number of private-sector contractors with high-level clearances mushroomed. So there's something else to look at there.

But -- yeah-- Civil Service Reform. Big time.

And I want to see all of Trump's disastrous environmental policy reversed. I want better, tighter regulation, much more distance between the regulators and the industries (for instance, MMS in Interior and the oil industry). Fewer federal employees -- but a more effective federal service.

Something we -- and they -- can be proud of. I think a progressive replacement of the Trump disaster should be a Right-Winger's Nightmare. And . . . [Blank] them . . . too . . .

 

[Muse]

If he loses in 2020, yes, I think all those things will be reversed. I also don't see how he can avoid being considered the worse POTUS ever. He's cornered the market.

 

[sportage]

Well.....
Trump COULD NOT abandon all of those Obama policies despite how he tried. Seems even republicans have pre-existing conditions they need protections for. Go figure.....
Doesn't matter what Donald Trump thinks about some of Obama's policies, THE PEOPLE including republicans over rule Donald Trump.

We really need to step back and just imagine the incredible harm that a Donald Trump second term can and will certainly do.
If Trump gets his second term, he won't give a damn what the people think, including republicans. Trump will go full steam ahead because he won't need worry about a third term.
And Trump knows that if Donald Trump gets a third term, that will be under a dictatorship. A Donald Trump dictatorship where elections no longer matter. Just ask vladimir putin how that works.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Well.....
Trump COULD NOT abandon all of those Obama policies despite how he tried. Seems even republicans have pre-existing conditions they need protections for. Go figure.....
Doesn't matter what Donald Trump thinks about some of Obama's policies, THE PEOPLE including republicans over rule Donald Trump.

We really need to step back and just imagine the incredible harm that a Donald Trump second term can and will certainly do.
If Trump gets his second term, he won't give a damn what the people think, including republicans. Trump will go full steam ahead because he won't need worry about a third term.
And Trump knows that if Donald Trump gets a third term, that will be under a dictatorship. A Donald Trump dictatorship where elections no longer matter. Just ask vladimir putin how that works.

That sounds about right. But we can't accurately gauge the harm he's already done.

I know the daughter of Nixon's Presbyterian minister. She's a retired Art History professor, and she had a brother in the foreign service under State Department. Early in Trump's first months, I remarked how it looked as though he was gutting the State Department -- perhaps as some sort of ignorant revenge against Hillary.

She confirmed it, saying her brother offered firsthand witness. But that was early, before we knew precisely what was happening. We know now the extent of what they had done, or continue to do.

As for "health care", this has been a real laugh. All along, we heard over and over from Trump "We'll have great health care." He never even had a plan. Look at all the time and effort they wasted to destroy the ACA. And yet, considering that fact that California has attempted to bolster the ACA at the state level, my indigent brother is still served well. I go out regularly to pick up his prescriptions: his mobility is limited for the time being. I'm always amazed. We have a common prescription: I pay out about $170 for three months'-worth; he pays less than $10. More power to him.

If they could bring back public hanging from a gallows, and if I were ascendant dictator, I'd have the whole Trump family strung up with live TV coverage at high noon on Christmas Day.

 

[Muse]

Well.....
Trump COULD NOT abandon all of those Obama policies despite how he tried. Seems even republicans have pre-existing conditions they need protections for. Go figure.....
Doesn't matter what Donald Trump thinks about some of Obama's policies, THE PEOPLE including republicans over rule Donald Trump.

We really need to step back and just imagine the incredible harm that a Donald Trump second term can and will certainly do.
If Trump gets his second term, he won't give a damn what the people think, including republicans. Trump will go full steam ahead because he won't need worry about a third term.
And Trump knows that if Donald Trump gets a third term, that will be under a dictatorship. A Donald Trump dictatorship where elections no longer matter. Just ask vladimir putin how that works.

No, Trump can't turn the USA into a Putin style dictatorship. If reelected, his 2nd term will be very like the 1st, ridiculous appointees, resignations, undone work, failures galore, ridiculous tweats on a daily basis... but it will be overall less eventful and more boring.

 

[Muse]

If they could bring back public hanging from a gallows, and if I were ascendant dictator, I'd have the whole Trump family strung up with live TV coverage at high noon on Christmas Day.

I don't think this can be arranged, but there's nothing stopping us from imagining it!

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I don't think this can be arranged, but there's nothing stopping us from imagining it!

It floats my boat.

Like I said elsewhere, if the Great Satan has to serve hard time, they could put him in a room with El Chapo. Regardless, they could feature him on MSNBC Lockup for a whole season. Maybe, they could put some drugs in his food or administer Sodium Pentothal, and submit him to behind-the-bars interviews by Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert and Al Franken.

What do you think? Could the Rightie Trumpies resist watching it? Would the ratings for the worst days of the week for MSNBC go through the roof? And -- once the Base is sucked in, would it work on their brains?